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-»Tt?e Kings of Wall Street,^- 



— OK — 



THI PXOPL 



vs. 




BY 



GRACE COURTLAND, 

"THE WITCH OF WALL STREET. 



-A. L K O T XT R E 

1881. 



f * 



COPYRIGHTED. 






COPYRIGHTED, 









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Ladies and Gentlemen: 



I do not feel that it is necessary for me to introduce myself 
to you this evening or apologize for the subject I have select- 
ed to talk about. There are no doubt many of you who know 
something of Wall Street, and who may have passed through 
the bushes without getting scratched. I dare say some of you 
have left tattered evidences of your struggles along the street, 
and mayhap your pocket books are lighter for having visited 
those sacred precincts. That a woman has had the hardihood 
to venture among the "Bulls and Bears" msij be a good excuse 
for making the subject of my lecture "The Kings of Wall 
Street." Their relations to the agricultural, the financial and 
commercial interests of our land. 

Their increasing power in the growth and development of 
our nation. — Their abuse of that power. — Their influence on 
a free press ; on the legislation and the courts ; on the lives 
and liberties of fifty millions of people. — I propose to handle 
the patient with heroic treatment and apply the scalpel with a 
fearless hand in the hope that the subject's life may yet be 
saved. I will say for myself that I am natural born gambler 
and that the spirit of speculation runs through my veins. 
Chance has never yet deserted me. Though sometimes fickle < 
the golden Goodess in my utmost need was always ready to 
lend a helping hand. 

First and foremost among the kings of Wall Street stands 
JAY GOULD. 

I will give you my reading of the man as he is known to the 
world and to himself. He is cold, vindictive, hard and unpity- 
ing. His ruling passion is not money, but the power he is able 
to wield through the possession of it. He takes no pride in 
being called rich, he joys in being feared. His organization has 
little of the human in it. He is devoid of sympathy. There is no 
warm place in his heart, he is heartless. Commencing life 
poor, nature endowed him with a contriving mechanical brain 
a long head, a constitution of iron and fearless nerve backed 



— 2 — 



by towering will power. He was born a speculator as Napole- 
on was born a general, and both would not hesitate to sacrifice 
all that is near or dear to accomplish a settled purpose. Pure- 
ly selfish he has had one aim : to be feared. Without love he 
is without pity. Trusting no one he can not be trusted. Friend- 
ship with him is an empty name, and he would not hesitate to 
sacrifice his most intimate associate if it suited his purpose. 
He is not great, even in a speculative way, though he has by 
shrewd manipulation hedged his name about with a fictitious 
dread. One half the moves in Wall Street he is credited with 
he has no hand in. It is this very fear of his mysterious action 
that enables him to hold his footing and wield a dreaded power. 
He laughs to himself at the credulity of the crowd when 
one of his secret emissaries causes it to be rumored about 
that : "Gould is in it" and quietly takes advantage of the situ- 
ation. 

He commenced by terrorizing his business colleagues, and 
whipping them into submission. They have grown fearful of 
the mention of his name. He then turned his attention to 
the Press and has subsidized free speech to further his purpos- 
es. The national highways, the rail roads and telegraphs have 
fallen under his bane. State and National Legislatures have 
been contaminated by his touch, and the presidential throne 
smirched with his corrupting. He has proven himself false to 
his friends :• he will prove false to the nation. Since his advent 
in the financial world he has been long of promises and short 
of fulfillments. His power has never been used for the public 
good. He conquers only to destroy. The records of his trans- 
actions do not belie the man. 

Day alter day the papers teem with sad and shocking tra- 
gedies. Of a father thrown upon the world, passed middle age 
robbed of the work of years, with money gone, credit destroy- 
ed, friends disappearing and a swarm of creditors taking the 
roof from over his family's head. Broken in spirit and health 
the helpless husband seeks imunity from despair at the pistol's 
mouth. A flash, — a heavy fall — a groan — and the story 
of a human life is ended. The prattle of innocent little ones 
is hushed, and a broken hearted mother with her heavy burden 
is left to battle alone : Who among you may not be the next 
victim. 



— 3 — 



I call upon the well wishers of this Kepublic, to arm them- 
selves in the cause of justice and right. The legislative halls 
of a prosperous nation, the government itself is fallen under 
the bane of a ruthless monarch, who conquers only to destroy 
through the power of money. 

How long shall this political, moral and social bloodshed be 
allowed to continue ? In possession of the telegraphs, the rail- 
roads, the press and the legislators, how long, think you, before 
the reins of Government will pass from the people's hands ? 
Already the judicial Seat of justice has been debauched by the 
touch of the moneyed dictators. What redress for the indivi- 
dual when law becomes a mockery and the courts but mercen- 
ary implements in the hands of a one-man power ? Beyond 
the private interests of the speculative class, who now act as 
tools in the hands of a people's destroyer, the overthrow of mo- 
nopoly becomes a question of national significance. What 
other nation would submit to this bold effrontery ? Where is 
the money market of another continent that would bow down 
to do their bidding ? They are playing with the government 
as they toy with their business colleagues and all have become 
dupes. It is time now to defeat their machinations. There 
are men of capital, of nerve and energy, both East, West and 
South, who are ready to combine and drive the destroyer from 
his stronghold. 

Have the commercial exchanges lost all honor, that they are 
content to do the dictator's servile bidding? Borne contained 
no tyrant half so merciless. Nero, in his mad delight at the 
burning city, was God to the soulless dictator who now 
seeks to sap the foundations of a Kepublic. Who is filching 
from the producing classes the reward of labor ? Who holds a 
mortgage on their lands and national highways, the railroads 
and telegraphs, and can at any moment sacrifice their bodies and 
their conscience. 

The woes of suffering Ireland and Kussia awake the sympa- 
thies of every american patriot. Do you stop to consider that 
we are drifting to the same abyss ? 



4 — 



The infamous transactions connected with the Western 
Union watered-stock deals from beginning to end are a stand- 
ing reproach to the financial credit of our land. 

Of what avail was the protest entered in the courts by its 
victims who were derided for an attempt to protect their rights 
against the arch Monopolists. 

I have tracked the Dictator's hand to his stronghold; the na- 
tional capital, and by evidence that is incontrovertable ident- 
ified him with a speculation in the life and death of a wounded 
president. The Cipher Dispatches that I received at 
my hotel in New York from Doctor Bliss, Jr., on the condition 
of General Garfield gave the lie direct to the fictitious bulletins 
that were daily issued to deceive the public. 

"You may count on one thing" said Doctor Bliss to me, "his 
pulse will rise and fall a good many times yet." 

The cipher reads as follows : 

1. Harry. — He is improving. 

2. Mary. — He is improving nicely. 

3. H. G.-He is failing. 

4. Frank. — He is failing rapidly. 

5. New York. — He is holding his own. 

6. M. J. — He will probably die. 

7. S. D. — He will surely die. 

8. D. K. B. — He will undoubtedly recover. 

9. John.— He will surely recover. 

10. Bates. — He is gaining. 

11. Sam. — He is gaining strength. 

12. Jersey City. — Do not credit reports. 

13. Brooklyn. — There is no danger. 

14. Washington. — He is out of danger. 
With the addition made by Dr. E. B. Bliss : 

15. Morris. — Do not be alarmed: 

Iu answer to my question "Do I hold the same Cipher as the 
one being used by Jay Gould ? " Doctor Bliss replied "Yes" 
and added "people outside of the Stock Board cannot get the 
encouragement from the Presidents slight improvement as 
those inside." On the morning of Friday, August 26th, every 
paper in New York came out with big head lines, describing 



— 5 — 

the Presidents low condition. The Herald head line was "Hope 
abandoned." That very day I received a letter from the 

sick-room which read : "I was much surprised to receive your 
telegram. What could have caused you to be stampeded. Dont 

YOU KNOW IF THERE WAS ANY DANGER THAT I SHOULD HAVE IN- 
FORMED YOU ? Also add to your list No. 16 "He is about the 
same" which will be understood by the word — Philadelphia." 

The exposition of the telegrams and letters I received from 
the sick-room were made in the "Truth," a fearless morning 
daily of NewYorkCity of September 19th, 20th andOctober 4th. 

The evidence is complete, positive and convincing, and the 
fact that it has not been denied by any of the parties impli- 
cated establishes the guilt of the accused. I have dared them 
to controvert it Their silence is the evidence of their guilt 
and an omnibus inditement has been returned by the Grand 
Jury of public opinion. The verdict rendered is : Guiltj^ of 
the offense as charged. 

It has been claimed that Doctor Bliss, Jr., was no match for 
me. He is a full grown man, over 30 years of age and I used 
no other advantage than brain against brain. 

WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT 

stands next on the list of monopolists. 

He is without the virtues of his father, while inheriting all 
the qualities that tend to make a rich man powerful and 
oppressive. His fortune was secured by luck, for brains have 
nothing to do with his success. He was born with a golden 
spoon in his mouth and has managed through Jay Gould's 
instruction to retain his hold. They may have disagreements 
among themselves, but they walk hand in hand on one issue, to 
filch from the poor and to control the national finance for their 
own selfish ends. 

With his grasp on 50 millions of Government bonds, who 
shall say that the dictator's man Friday, does not wield 
a dangerous power. His henchmen and slavish tools have 
throttled the legislation of the empire State and stand ready to 
drag liberty from her throne. 

Who is this man that has the bold effrontery to boast of car- 
rying the State of New York in his pocket ? What has he done 



6 — 



for his subjects that they must bow down and worship ? Can 
You point to a single charitable act he has done for the pub- 
lic good ? Have the hungry, the cold, the dying, reason to 
bless him for his munificence ? 

He is callous to the sufferings of the masses while he some- 
times gives for public notoriety. Has he ever stopped to con- 
sider that the gaunt skeletons who haunt the byways and alleys 
of our Cities, stretching out their shrivled hands for a paltry 
pittance are the victims to his avaricious greed. The vast bulk 
of his wealth remains untaxed while the struggling laborer is 
forced into penury. Does he stop to consider that some day 
the crushed and downtrodden may realize this fact and call 
upon him in the hour of reckoning for a settlement of accounts. 

Let him be warned in time that the masses will not always 
tamely submit to being deprived of what is theirs by right of 
universal law. That the subsistance of the poor can not be 
taxed to support the rich. That not alone the execrations but 
the vengeance of half-starved men may yet fall upon his head. 

Is it right, is it just ? that one man shall possess more dol- 
lars than there are human hearts in these United States. 

In the height of his arrogant power let him look to the fate 
of men who have ruled before through oppression; yet who 
were forced to their graves in public ignominy. Whose memories 
are a blackened spot upon the financial and political records 
of the land and their miserable existences only referred to in 
shame and disgrace. 

Let him beware that no worse fate than this overtakes the 
man who is filling his pockets from the life giving necessities 
of fifty millions of the oppressed. 

The question has often been asked why I make war on Gould 
and Vanderbilt. I will tell you why. They are the fathers and 
representatives of a system that is fast destroying the ameri- 
can republic. As the instigators and prime movers in the great 
monopolies of the land, they become the head and front of a na- 
tional offending. Their success has produced a multitude of 
imitators ; a class of men imbued with desperate daring, bent 
on exalting the individual at the expense of the comunity. 
Monopoly is the instrument with which they hope to attain their 



— 7 



secret purpose. Sustained by their example what will they 
not dare to defy ? Eome was a monument of republican success 
for a hundred years, but dwindled into decay. The forces that 
sapped her life, are crumbling the foundation stones that our 
forefathers builded so faithfully and so well. The greatest good 
to the greatest number is but a faint echo in the forgotten past 
the memory of a proud design yet unfulfilled. 

Corruption, financial, political and social, has fixed her dead- 
ly fangs on our national life. In the mad haste to get wealth, 
the barriers between right and wrong have been washed away, 
justice made dumb, and mercy driven from her throne. We 
have become used to the purchasing power of money. Before 
this golden God the people are compelled to worship. Genius 
and beauty, virtue and strength, are suppliants at this shrine. 
The law is suffering from its fateful influence, and the courts 
are not above purchase. The press is shackled by its mandates 
and only half dare to be true. The church is fawningly obse- 
quious and caters cringingly to the ruling passion. The power 
that governs the judicial seat has become a common barter. So- 
ciety, with the individual, is lost in the vortex, while oppress- 
ion with eager haste is binding up her slaves. 

I do not exaggerate the picture. With our broad acres and 
teeming soil, reproducing bread for other nations of the earth, 
we are yet drifting on the shoals. The rich are growing richer, 
the poor more degraded. The estimate of virtue is based upon 
dollars and cents, and the individual's power limited to the ex- 
tent of his means. The cries of the oppressed are to be heard 
in the fields, the work shops and the counting room. The 
dumb muttering of the coming tempest was but faintly heard 
in the outburst of the railroad strikes in 1877. 

It is not in the nature of universal law, that the greater num- 
ber forever submit to the less. As nations increase in knowledge 
they come to a juster conception of individual rights. If de- 
prived of these rights' they will not tamely submit. Monopolists 
throughout the world are using all efforts to sink the down- 
trodden deeper in irreparable ruin. It is not idleness that 
throngs the station house for a night's lodging or walks the 
streets in poverty and rags; it is the necessary consequence of 



— 8 — 



a corrupt financial and political system which now enriches the 
few at the expense of the many. 

The monopolists and corporations are granted imunity froni 
taxation, while the honest grower of corn or cattle is put up 
for sale under the sheriff's hammer. Is this in equity to the 
man who owns a single house and lot, on which unjust burdens 
have been placed to make up the deficiency? 

The Government domains have been trifled away to the rail- 
road harpies that have clustered about the nation's capitol and 
bought the peoples birth-right for a mess of pottage. The la- 
borers of the land are ground to the dust. The speculator, the 
financier, the master- class man, the professional politician are 
united on one issue, to despoil the reward of labor and filch 
from the producing classes the work of human lives. Over- 
reaching, chicanery, usury and swindling contrary to law, and 
in accordance with law have become notorious. The future of 
our Government is, without question, we must seek a new way 
or go down in oblivion and, like Plato's republic, live only in a 
name. 

I have not overdrawn the situation. It is time for the people 
to awake to battle The enemy monopoly is at our door and 
is rapidly taking the citadel by storm. His iron grasp is bind- 
ing the souls and conscience of the men elected to represent 
a free people. Each convention, legislature and senate of the 
States and Government succumb to his poisonous embrace. 
His imperious commands they dare not disobey, while they 
continue to perpetrate crimes in the name of the popular will. 
A revolution of public thought may yet save the ship. 

Important issues have before threatened destruction to our 
republican form of Government The question of to-day, and 
one that involves the weal and woe of 50 millions of inhabit- 
ants, is the growing power of corporate monopoly. Already 
the iron bands have been placed about an indifferent public, 
and the national taskmaster stands ready to compel submission. 
The courts of the land are bowing reverently to the God of 
money, and the administration corrupted by the equity that 
is purchased for gold. The judicial ermine is trailing in the 



dust, and the law, that bulwark of freedom, has become an 
apology for legalized destruction. 

About the Nation's Capital have swarmed the forces of an in- 
sidious enemy who do not hesitate to trample the Constitution 
under foot; who clamor for the spoils of political conquest and 
fatten on the toil and labor of an industrial people; who boast 
of their power to buy the representatives elected by the popu- 
lar will, and who flaunt their corruption in the face of universal 
protest. Around the body politic the subtle coils of giant mo- 
nopoly has fastened its deadly grasp, poisoning with corrupt- 
ing fangs the life-blood of our financial, political and social 
world. In the mad race for power and wealth the nobleness of 
statesmanship has become a memory of the past. In the graves 
of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln lie buried the glorious 
examples of men above the power of purchase, who neglected 
the individual for the universal good. Monopoly in their pre- 
sence found no favor and boasted not of its triumphs. 

To-day the nation's future is hanging in the balance. The 
time has come to strike the monster that threatens our public 
life. It is not enough that we tacitly admit that corporation 
possesses the land, control the finance, rule the court and sub- 
ject the press. The battle must be fought in open field and 
the tocsin sounded with a call to arms. I do not exaggerate 
the situation. The popular sentiment is being outraged by 
the slavery under which we have fallen. The instigators of 
the crusade against our freedom and ou r rights must be over- 
thrown, the proud man brought low, and the weight of right- 
eous indignation concentrated to hurl him from his throne. 
"When individuals arrogate to themselves the right to dictate 
to the masses, they become dangerous. When they aim to 
circumvent and seek to destroy, they can no longer be tolerated. 

The centralization of power vested in Jay Gould and William 
H. Vanderbilt has become a menace to our free institutions. 
As the daring leaders of organized monopoly, as the fathers of 
a pernicious system of public and private espionage, circum- 
venting the welfare of the nation and the individual, they have 
become marked men. The principals upon which they base 
their operations, are contrary to the maintainance of a free Re- 
public. The individual cannot thrive in this universal servi- 



10 — 



tucle. His appeals are all unheeded and his protest is treated 
with scorn. The man who tries to stem the drift is lost in the 
whirl pool of bankruptcy. He becomes discouraged in his vain 
attempt to battle with a human reptile, and in his desperation 
he seeks the quiet of the grave, daring the blank unknown rath- 
er than face the blighted hopes in a ruined home. The truth 
may sometimes cause the Dictator's flesh to quiver, but his 
heart is motionless, for it is without pity and without remorse. 

With the fields, the highways, the finance ; the press and the 
courts at their command, where is the shadow of our boasted 
freedom ? Let the ghosts of men driven into the dark respond. 
Let the shade of Horace Greeley come back and point with 
bony finger at the monument he reared with honest purpose, 
now seeking to find a justification for universal oppression. 
Once the organ of free thought, free speech and popular liber- 
ty : now the advocate of a national slavery. Toll the bell : To 
the memory of a race of men who labored for the country's 
good. Men who were above the power of purchase. Who 
scorned the name of slaves, and gave their money with their 
blood to sustain the Constitution and the law. Who worshiped 
liberty and left their shattered bones on many a battle field for 
truth and right. 

No question of party issue is involved in the demand of the 
times. We are drifting to the briuk of a mighty precipice, and 
the hour is at hand to sound alarm. 

The purchasing power of money will not stand the scrutiny of 
public approval. The Nation is awake to the necessity of check- 
ing a contagion, that has permeated every element of our Go- 
vernment, and even now threatens our republican life. It will 
be a dark day for the nation when it is forced to the belief that 
"every man has his price." The death-knell of Liberty will toll 
when public sentiment is not strong enough to rise up and take 
the monster of corruption by the throat. 

The grave of Freedom has been dug by the power that seeks 
to control the products, the highways, the finance, the law and 
the press of this great Nation. Shall Liberty be buried? Has 
the patriotism, the honor, the courage of the early pioneer ceas- 
ed to flow in our veins ? Are the Patrick Henrys, the Websters 



11 



the Clays, the Calhouns, the Sumners all gone? Was it for this 
our ancestors struggled and fought, only that we might be 
bound hand and foot ; that the place-hunter might sit in our 
legislative halls and traffic in the people's rights; that the will 
of our Chief Executive might bow to the king of finance and 
the national exchequer open or shut at his supreme command ? 
To what condition have we come when a dying ruler, shot 
down by the hand of a bloody Assassin, can be made the in- 
strument of a stock-jobbing operation ? We have fallen too low 
and the moral atmosphere must needs be purged by the coming 
storm. Let the originators of the national pest flee from the 
wrath to come. 

By the instrument of divine justice will they receive their re- 
ward. Intrenched in their stronghold they dare defy the gods; 
but just so surely will they be destroyed. The force of 
public opinion that they now despise will one day sweep them 
into oblivion. They but nourish the resentment of an outraged 
people, who will arise to drag them from their thrones. The cries 
of the oppressed will not always go unheard. The echos of 
the French Revolution have not yet died upon our shores. 
Must the history of this terrible event be repeated ? Can the 
just demand of the toiler be obtained in no other way than by 
a resort to force ? Does the spirit of Freedom only thrive 
in the shedding of blood ? Have the laws become a mockery 
and equity the shadow of a name ? Can we submit to the de- 
struction of national honor and passively surrender ourselves 
to a slavery worse than death ? 

These are questions that must now be answered. No maud- 
lin statesmanship or sicklied catering of a shackled press will 
satisfy the demands of the hour. We are on the brink of a 
national crisis, and a fearless leader will be required to pilot us 
through. The issue is "The People vs. Monopoly" and the 
question will decide our fate as a Nation. It is for us to say 
how long a band of mercenary hirelings shall possess our pub- 
lic domain, our national highways, the industries granted by 
nature and secured by labor, the judiciary of our form of go- 
vernment, the banks, the press & the pulpit. A greater question 
than the slavery of the colored race is here ; a question involv- 
ing the freedom or servitude of every man, woman and child 
under the American Flag. Upon this issue depends our exist- 
ance in the catalogue of free nations, our welfare as an industri- 
ous people, and the name that will be emblazoned with shame 
or glory in the future of unwritten history yet to be. 



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LfBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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